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Friday, December 9, 2011

Free Music: Church of Betty at BAMcafé Live

Photo: Church of Betty, by Sibylle Jud

Any westerner who’s heard North Indian music knows that there’s often something uncanny about its rhythm. It’s all in the tabla—an indispensable Indian drum played using just the palms and fingers. Alternating between crisp-timbered highs and delicious liquid lows (think bowling balls being dropped into a vat of thick tar), the tabla’s sounds are alive and complex in a way that brings to mind hip-hop and R&B beats while evoking a cultural milieu distinctly apart from them. But however mediated, the groove is definitely there, and seductive in a way that its western equivalents aren’t. Which begs the question: in this age of anything-goes creative plundering, why haven’t more musicians embraced it?

Deep Sing (tabla) and Church of Betty's Chris Rael (sitar)

The answer could be intimidation;
Indo-popsextetChurch
of Betty is scary good at it. The band has spent the last two decades finding inventive
ways for sitars and guitars to get along famously, and not just in slapdash
fashion. Front man Chris Rael (on sitar, above) spent years in Varanasi, India
learning the ins and outs of Hindustani music before returning to the US to
form his band. The result was instant success: gigs on the National Mall and at
Celebrate Brooklyn, stints at Town Hall and the Public Theater. They were also
a staple at the original Knitting Factory on Houston Street, a one-time Shangri-La for
bands like Church
of Betty whose sound defies
categories.